The Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality misdirected a $1.8 million payment and did not realize the mistake until the Nebraska foundation that received the money reported it to the state.

State auditor Mike Foley called on the environmental quality department to explain what began as a clerical error but ended up as a mistake that director Mike Linder did not know about until Friday—more than three weeks after the error was reported and 10 days after it was corrected.

“You have to have strong accounting controls,” Foley said Friday. “You have to have strong segregation and good people at each one of those desks, and there was a breakdown in this instance.”

The money was supposed to go to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, but an office worker mistyped the agency’s vendor code into the state’s payment system. The money was instead sent to the Nebraska Children & Families Foundation on April 20.

Two department officials who reviewed the payments did not catch the error, even though the system lists vendors’ names and codes for review, environmental quality department spokesman Brian McManus said.

The department worked with the foundation and the Department of Administrative Services and got the money back May 3. The money was paid to the EPA on May 8.

McManus said the department was investigating the situation, and welcomed the auditor’s advice. No personnel changes had been made, but McManus said any internal changes would not be released publicly.

Foley said he found out about the mistake Thursday through his own “back channels” and immediately contacted the department’s director.

“I would have thought the agency would have contacted me,” Foley said.

McManus said the mistake was fixed, but he could not speculate about whether the department would have reviewed its practices had the director not found out about the error.

“Clearly whether it was corrected or not, it’s important that notification internally goes up the chain of command,” McManus said. “That’s one change that was immediately expressed—is that from this point on when a serious mistake is made the director needs to get written notification about it.”

Nebraska Children & Families Foundation Executive Director Mary Jo Pankoke said the foundation called the Department of Administrative Services and the Department of Environmental Quality to report the error on April 25.

Foley said the department told him they were notified of the problem May 4. McManus called that a “misunderstanding,” and said the department was called April 26. A telephone call to the administrative services director was redirected to McManus.

The money was supposed to go to the EPA to pay for Nebraska’s share of a federal program that cleans up 14 sites throughout the state, McManus said. The EPA administers the program and pays contractors, while Nebraska annually pays the agency a 10 percent share of the costs, McManus said.

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